The way to work out (I mean the way to really work out) is
to have your full
attention
on what you're doing. Body /
mind
/ being: it's a complete, totalcommitment.
During my five mile morning run on an elliptical, I avoid
reading (yes, reading: there's actually a bookstand on each elliptical
for that purpose, perfectly positioned so you can easily read while you
run). To me, it's simply a distraction from being fully engaged with
the exercise.

<aside>

That's something valuable I learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger when
he
served
as Chairman of President George HW Bush's Council on Physical
Fitness and Sports: if you're not fully engaged with the exercise,
you're simply going through the motions and not
deriving the maximum benefit.

<un-aside>

What's impossible to avoid, however, are the eight big screen
television monitors mounted with brackets on my gym wall, arranged
directly in front of my
face,
each of them tuned to a different news channel. Without turning my
head, without looking away, without closing my eyes, without looking
down, they're there, whether I like it or not: eight different news
channels are right there, impossible to avoid.

So this is what's going on: I'm running five miles, and I'm
watching
eight different news channels on eight big screen television monitors
while I run. I wouldn't
watch
if I could avoid
watching.
And I can't. So I
watch.

At first I notice the different presentation styles of the news
anchors. Some are formally dressed, some casually. Some read their
teleprompter with hardly any expression. Some smile inexplicably all
the time with a kind of glee, even when reporting natural
disasters and grisly war
incidents.

If you're confronted almost daily with eight different news channels
all at the same time, eventually you get beyond the superficial
appearance of the news anchors, and you start to notice the actual
content they broadcast. It's disproportionately skewed
towards threats to our
survival:
earthquake
(Napa Valley),
volcano (Iceland), brutality / terrorism (Iraq, Syria), never-ending
war (Israel / Gaza). There's not ... one ...
single ... item ... covering
breakthroughs
which improve the quality of life on
our planet.
There's not one piece covering the access to possibility (which will
turn all the other covered sagas around in a
heartbeat).
There's not even a piece alluding to it. That doesn't mean
such
breakthroughs
aren't
happening.
But it does mean they're not covered on the news.

Pretty soon, if you're in front of this unrelenting barrage daily for
days and weeks if not for months and years, you start to question
what's reallydriving
it. Here I'm not referring to the events themselves (although, to be
sure, there's certainly some overlap). Rather I'm referring to the
unwavering focus of the news on the tragic. It's more than that
actually: it's the unwavering focus of the news on the tragic to the
almost total exclusion of possibility, and to the almost total
exclusion of events and ideas which
create
possibility.

On
reflection
as I pedal the elliptical, glancing briefly away from the eight big
screens towards the elliptical's tiny digital LCD screen
just long enough to maintain my speed at 6.8 miles per hour, pulling
and pushing the handle grips to keep a steady pace, none of this is
surprising. The media's job is not to relay the non-tragic
news. Media is a
business.
It's a big, multi-billion dollar
business.
And tragedy sells. Just like cigarettes sell by
causing,
then supplying the relief for, an
addiction,
news sells by
causing,
then supplying the relief for, an
addiction.
And the
addiction
the media deals in is the
addiction
to
survival.
When our
survival
is threatened, it's big news, and consequently big
business.
And here's the thing: our
survival,
being what it is, is always and constantly threatened.

Gee! I hope you get that.

You could say there's simply not much
money
to be made in delivering non-tragic news - and you'd be naïve in
assuming the media would be
interested
in delivering non-tragic news (or, worse, that they
should
be
interested
in delivering non-tragic news).
Listen:
there's even lessmoney
to be made in covering possibility and
breakthroughs
in what's possible for being for human beings - at least, for now. For
now, the big
money
is in covering (and, of course, in embellishing) the
tragedies
playing
out,
Shakespeare-esque,
on our
planet's
(all
the world's
a) stage.

There's one more thing, which is this: there's the likelihood that news
channel program managers who select what will appear on the news and
what won't (and clearly there's a lot to choose from), may
not have the distinction "possibility" clear for
themselves (and in all likelihood, they don't), in just the same way as
there was a time when you didn't have the distinction
"possibility" clear for yourself either, yes? Don't make them wrong for
it. It's only a fool who expects someone who can't hold a tune or who
can't
play
an instrument, to make great music. It's more than that actually. It's
in this particular
analogy,
the very distinction music (aka possibility) hasn't yet
been teased out.

So when you're
watching
the news, your choice is clear. Man up: either
write off
making the media wrong for not distinguishing possibility ... or
enroll them in doing so (ie
shut up
or put up).

Watch: what I get as I
watch
eight channels of tragedy unfolding right in front of my
face
as I work out on this elliptical (without the luxury of not
watching)
is I'm the one who brings possibility forth. It's I who gets to
create
the
context
not only for the news items themselves which I'm
watching,
but also for
who I'm being
as I'm
watching
them. That's my job. Don't count on the media to do it.
They won't: it's not their job. Look: it's also (literally)
none of their
business.
I'm the one, as are you, who'll do it. More importantly, I'm the one,
as are you, who can.